Radio Astronomy SDR Applications
The SDR-IQ is a great receiver for Sudden Ionospheric Disturbances (SID monitoring) at frequencies as low as 500 Hz. The SDR-IQ covers the 500 Hz to 30 MHz band in 1 Hz steps. The continuum mode in SpectraVue can be used to plot power over time or the spectrum with a span of up to 190 KHz. The SpectraVue software can be configured to run FFTs up to 2097152 point. This is equivalent to a resolution of 0.093Hz in a 190 KHz span. The receiver has a maximum FFT resolution of 0.0039 Hz in a 5 KHz span. The SDR-14 also has a 0.05-30 MHz wide real capture mode similar to the SDR-IP with up to 262144 point FFT.
SDR-IQ and SDR-14 Uses in Radio Astronomy
The SDR-IP is a very high sensitivity and low noise receiver covering the 10 KHz to 35 MHz band in 1 Hz steps. The hardware is capable of realtime captures of 2 MHz wide spectrum in I/Q mode. In realtime mode, the software can perform a 2048 point FFT at a speed of about 400 FFTs a second. This mode can be used for HI line spectrometer, SID, meteor, jupiter and solar burst observations. The wideband modes are very useful for pulsar astronomy. The SDR-IP can be phase locked and triggered to within 12.5 ns. Coherent dedispersion is built into the SpectraVue software. In addition, the SDR-IP can also capture the 0.01-35 MHz spectrum in blocks of up to 262144 points. The 2048 point FFT update rate in this mode is about 400 FFTs a second. This is ideal for solar burst spectrometry and ionospheric studies.
SDR-IP Uses in Radio Astronomy
0.01-35 MHz SDR-IP Spectrometer with 65536 point FFT
Pulsar observations with SDR-14 in triggered mode
Monitoring on VLF transmissions with SDR-IP